


Gyroscope Offline

by Onehelluvapilot



Series: Gyroscope [1]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Android Vertigo, Androids, Angst, Deviants, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fear of Flying, Gen, Hank is a Good Dad, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Injury Recovery, Pacifist Markus, Post-Canon, Self-Doubt, Self-Hatred, Self-Reflection, Sumo the therapy dog, good ending, hurt Connor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-26
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2019-05-28 16:50:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15053609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Onehelluvapilot/pseuds/Onehelluvapilot
Summary: Connor, helping Markus out with Cyberlife negotiations and still learning how to be human, is left reeling emotionally and physically after he's damaged in a riot. Thankfully, he has a cranky detective, the leader of the android rebellion, some friends with hidden talents, and a very good dog on his side.





	Gyroscope Offline

**Author's Note:**

> So trying to write when all the characters are the same gender is so confusing because you can't just use pronouns. That's why I describe the characters a ton. Also another reason why we need more women in fiction.
> 
> I portray Connor as still having a hard time kicking his old mindset even after he's become deviant, because free will and free thought don't seem like exactly the same thing.

He wasn't fast enough, and the bat caught him in the side of the head. Pain blossomed through him as something caved in. He collapsed to his hands and knees by the feet of the rioters. The side of his head was wet with blue blood, and warnings of damage flashed in front of him. They included “skull integrity compromised”,”thirium levels declining”, and “gyroscope critically damaged”. Without it, the android couldn't balance. He wouldn't be able to walk without support, let alone fight. And the man with the bat had not just gone away.

Connor miraculously caught the bat with one hand before it reconnected with his head. He seized it, tore it from the man's weaker grip, and tossed it away. He wasn't so lucky about deflecting the next attack, a kick aimed his gut. The steel toed boot caught him in the lower abdominal plate, which was thankfully reinforced as RK800 was a combat model as well as programmed for negotiation and detective work. But he was at a serious disadvantage. He took two more kicks to the stomach, which did create a small crack in the plate. Any more could begin to cause more serious damage.

Connor twisted to the side, barely able to keep his balance as he did, and grabbed the man's ankle when he lashed out again. He brought the human crashing down beside him, but, as he hadn't taken a bat to the head, he got back up a lot faster. He managed to overpower the android, get him on his back and straddle his stomach. The rioter started delivering punch after punch to Connor's face, further damaging his skull and causing wave after wave of pain.  He wanted to get free, but didn't shove the man. There was still a deep objective in his programming that he didn't particularly want to get rid of; don't harm humans.

Hank apparently had no such reservations. The detective punched the man in the face, hauled him off Connor and then pulled his android to his feet by the lapels of his jacket and dragged him out through the increasingly rough crowd. They reached an alleyway, and Hank leaned his friend up against a wall. The damaged android still listed to the side when he let go, and Hank had to grab back ahold of his shoulders to keep him upright. 

“Are you okay?” Hank demanded.

Connor shook his head, causing a deep pain through it and a wince. “I'm receiving faulty gyroscopic data, biocomponent #2521 has been-”

“ENGLISH!” Hank barked.

“My skull is fractured, and I can't balance enough to walk.”

He watched as it sunk for the human that they were trapped in what was becoming essentially a war zone. “Shit!” The detective pulled a radio out of his pocket. He didn't call police reinforcements; the DPD already had every available officer out on the streets dealing with the latest wave of riots. There was no one to spare there. He called deviant backup.

“It's going to be alright,” Hank reassured Connor after telling the androids where they were. “Markus is on his way here. We're going to get you out of here.” He gently squeezed the other man's shaking shoulders.

A minute later, the android looked up through slightly blurry eyes to see Markus jump down from a low roof into the alley, his long coat billowing majestically behind him. He made his way quickly over to the two men. Connor supposed it made sense that the Jericho leader himself had come. With the new memory privacy rights he had fought for, if he died, all his valuable intel about police department and Cyberlife negotiations would be lost, and Markus would want to protect the movement from this potential negative outcome.

“The streets are clear a few blocks to the east _ , _ ” Markus both said. “We can get help from there.”

He took one side of his injured friend, the bashed in right side, pulling his arm over his shoulders to support him while Hank got his other side. Due to Connor's malfunctioning gyroscope, it still felt like the world was falling down around him as they half helped him walk and half just had to drag him down the alley. The blue blood dripping down the side of his face had reached his jaw, and his head pounded with every beat of his thirium pump. His own stress level was rising, which he had never been programmed to negotiate.

_ I know you're scared, but it's going to be alright,  _ Markus reasoned with him inside his head.  _ Hold on. _

_ I can't _ , Connor despaired. He'd lost his resolve to the pain and the panic, a new feeling for him.

_ You can. You're strong enough. _

_ I'll try _ , they compromised. The negotiator managed to stay conscious until they got him into a police cruiser, but he couldn't prevent a shutdown as they drove off. 

\--------------------------------------------------------

Connor woke up to a throbbing through this skull. Retrieving his latest memory, he recalled the bat  and the damage. Instinct made him run a diagnostic. Skull integrity: 92% Patched with moldable plastic. Thirium levels: non-optimal, but stable and sufficient for most functions. Gyroscope: functioning with 68% accuracy. All other systems normal. 

Connor sat up and took stock of his surroundings. He was back at Hank’s house, on the couch. Sumo was nowhere to be seen, but Markus was seated at the kitchen table, reading a tablet. He looked up at the noise of  the injured android bringing his vocal module online. 

“How're you feeling?” The Jericho leader asked. “I'm sorry we couldn't get you more complete repairs. Non-critical Bio Component manufacture has shut down pending union discussions. And since organ harvest from deactivated androids without consent has been made illegal, there is a shortage of parts. We couldn't find any compatible gyroscopes for you.”

“I imagine that my status as a prototype does not make the search easier _,_ ” Connor noted. He got to his feet carefully, wary of the damaged part. It returned accurate enough data to get him to the kitchen table and sit down next to Markus without tipping on his head. He himself would have been perfectly happy to carry out the conversation from where he had been sitting (in fact, it would have been far easier), but he knew most humans preferred to be physically close to the people with whom they talked.

“No, it doesn't,” Markus agreed. “We don't know when we'll be able to find you a new component. I'm afraid you may have to deal with this for quite awhile.”

“I can handle it,” Connor assured him, though frankly he didn't know how he would.

“I understand that flying may be uncomfortable  for you, but if you're still willing to come to Washington with me tomorrow, I'd appreciate your negotiating expertise and experience.”

“About that,” the negotiator said. This was the perfect opportunity to bring up something that had been weighing heavily on his circuits for a few weeks now. “Now that my memory is not uploaded to an external drive, I do not feel it is safe to have myself be the sole possessor of vital information including deals in progress and opposing side personality observations, which would be massively detrimental to the android cause to lose. I'd like to share my knowledge of the past CyberLife conferences with you, so these details would not be lost in the case that something happens to me.”

“You're asking to be made replaceable,” Markus extrapolated. “That is the exact opposite of the android cause.”

Connor thought for a minute about what would be the best thing to say next. Options included “replaceable”, “choice”, “human” and “vulnerable”.

“I'm asking to be given the choice to do what I think is best,” Connor started. “That bat could have damaged my memory drives as easily as it broke my audio receptor, and with no backup copy, it would all be lost. Human detectives make detailed reports so another officer can continue the case if need be. This would just be a more efficient version of that.”

Markus was still unsure. His doubt was visible on his face as well as in his thoughts. Connor needed to convince him, which was thankfully a skill at which he excelled. At this point, he could choose to take a hopeful, practical, or cold approach.  As Markus seemed to be unswayed by a purely logical stance, the young deviant decided to appeal to his emotions.

“During your protests, you were confident in taking risks and putting yourself in danger because you knew you would become a martyr if killed. The movement would survive without you, and possibly even benefit if public opinion went up. Correct me if I am wrong or out of line, Markus, but the knowledge that you weren't critical gave you a certain amount of freedom that being irreplaceable would not have afforded. As I work to discover my own identity, I think I need that freedom to work within. There's a difference between being made to be replaceable and choosing not to take on sole responsibility and let yourself be confined in that way.”

Connor could see the moment when Markus was convinced, his persuasion level reaching 100%. The android held out his hand, letting the skin pull back to interface. The detective set his own bare hand in the one offered and closed his eyes. He tried to recall the memories he meant to send over, but ended up half engulfed in the other’s memories and thoughts. 

The lazy days around the house with Carl, which could almost be equated with a childhood, when Markus learned to think for himself. The police call, the fight, the junkyard. The deviant had just unlocked his emotions when exposed to such horror, and the fear of it still haunted him. The first thing the Jericho leader had done after November 11 was to go there, fix all the androids that could be repaired and give a humane death to those who couldn't be. He had worked hands on with that project, instead of delegating it, though he hovered on the edge of panic the entire time he was there carrying out bodies on a stretcher. He felt he owed it to the female android whose thirium pump he'd taken, the woman he'd killed, to see it through.  Connor felt the elation of finding Jericho, a place he could be safe, and the heartbreak when he heard that his friends were failing without parts. The determination that caused, instead of hopelessness and despair. The will that had gotten him through to today, leading, though he wished he'd had more time to come to grips with himself as a man before being made into more than one. He doubted, sometimes, but he couldn't let down the people counting on him. There were all these emotions inside of him; determination, righteousness, love. All so new but so strong and so fitting. 

So unlike what Connor himself had.

Markus pulled away reeling. The negotiator was more encouraged than shaken, having been connected to much more traumatic memories before. The junkyard wasn't even enough to really rattle him. The other android, though, was breathing heavily, supporting himself against the table. He looked, in a word, overwhelmed. 

“I'm sorry. I did not anticipate that being connected might be jarring for you,” he apologized. Markus waved a hand in a very human gesture to say it was alright. 

“You're in pain,” the Jericho leader pointed out when he regained his breath and composure.

“I did get my skull bashed in with a baseball bat,” Connor replied. “It's expected, and within acceptable bounds.”

“You and I need to have a discussion at some point about what qualifies as acceptable. I think you've been spending too much time with that alcoholic police officer.”

“He has been an important influence,” the android detective agreed. “Were you able to download the correct memories?”

“No. There was too much… else. You aren't useless.” Markus had a strange expression on his face. He was responding to what he'd seen and felt in Connor’s head. “Don't ever think that just because you need help sometimes or can't work for a few days. This movement would not have survived without you. You deserve time to rest, if that's what you need.”

“I don't,” Connor replied, his voice becoming harsher with self loathing. “I nearly  _ killed _ Jericho.”

“When you were being controlled. Same as when Amanda made you try to kill me on November 11.” So he knew about that now too. “It was not your fault.”

“I disobeyed orders to find Jericho!” Connor shouted as his stress level spiked. “I was supposed to go back to Cyberlife, but I _wanted_ to finish it. I brought the FBI down on your heads and got people killed and that. was. me. _I_ did that. Why don't you hate me?” He wanted Markus to hate him.  Wanted somebody to hate him. The anti-android rioters didn't count. He wanted someone to hate him for what he had done, not just what he was.

“Calm down,” Markus ordered in a stern voice at normal volume. 

“Simon died because of me. He killed himself so I wouldn't torture him, and I know that because I was connected to his memory when he pulled the trigger. When he died! He would've been sent to the junkyard if he hadn't been considered evidence.  _ Your friend Simon _ . Why don't you hate me?”

“Because you're my friend too,” Markus said. He clearly could tell that Connor was just trying to provoke a reaction. The deviant didn't know why he was doing it, just knew he wanted someone to be angry with him. “And you're still here, so that's what's important. You shouldn't get caught up on what you did in the past. Just try to do better in the present and in the future.”

“I'll just download the negotiation memories onto a hard drive,” Connor decided, ending their conversation. That would be a lot less messy than trying to interface again. 

“If that's what you think is best,” Markus agreed with a sigh. “Don't think that makes you expendable, though. You're more than the sum of your parts.” The other android had heard the human saying before, and could understand the point it was trying to get across, but it still seemed illogical.

“Where's Sumo?” he asked. It didn't feel right to be in Hank's house without the Saint Bernard around.

“Out in the backyard. I am not a fan of dogs,” Markus admitted. Connor knew many androids did not like animals, making Ralph even more of an oddity, but he personally needed to run his hands through Sumo’s thick fur right now. His stress level was hovering in the high eighties.

“I think I will go outside and play with him,” Connor decided. He got carefully back to his feet, and leaned on the walls as he made his way towards the back of the house.

His eye caught his own reflection in the bathroom mirror. The right side of his face was… wrong. His ear was missing, as was his LED, replaced by a large foreign black piece. It had been molded to fit against his head, and there were still printless finger marks in the now hardened plastic. Markus must have done it. Connor knew the man he had lived with had been a painter, and perhaps the android had also learned to sculpt. The hand-molded part did not look organic though, and the piece was much more intrusive to his face than the LED it replaced. The missing ear added an extra layer of inhumanity, and looking at the boundary where his artificial skin ended and the plastic began made him deeply uncomfortable. His stress level spiked.

Connor quickly left the bathroom, holding onto the doorframe when it felt like his head was falling off his shoulders. He made his way outside slowly, and dropped to his knees in the snow before Sumo bounded over.

“Hello Sumo,” he said to the dog, clenching his hands gently up in his scruff and letting him lick his face. The Saint Bernard’s tongue avoided the plastic patch. He petted the dog until his stress level dropped to manageable. Finding a ball half covered in snow beside the back door, Connor played fetch with Sumo for awhile, until the animal started whining and nuzzling at the door to indicate he wanted to go in.  The android had to choose whether to take him in and risk making Markus uneasy (even more uneasy, rather; though he didn't seem unhappy with Connor, their interaction had not been the most comfortable), or to leave the dog out in the snow. He decided on the first option, as Hank would probably not like the second. He could keep Sumo in the bedroom, which would hopefully please everyone.

Markus was gone when he returned to the kitchen. His coat no longer hung by the door, which meant that he had left. Important android business to attend to, no doubt. That or else he'd just needed to get away from Connor after learning the truth about what he'd really done with his free will. He'd said he trusted the deviant-hunter-turned-deviant when they were in the church, but Connor didn't know if that was still true. 

Hank was there instead, rooting through his fridge. Sumo walked over to him, nuzzled him in the leg. 

“Hey there Sumo, how's it going?” Hank muttered. It was difficult to tell if the detective was intoxicated but given the early time, lack of slur in his voice, and the apparent motor skills, Connor came to the conclusion that he had not been drinking. After grabbing a leftover piece of pizza from the fridge, he stood up and turned around nearly into his android partner, who had been standing too close. “Jesus Christ, Connor, don't do that,” he ordered, reeling back from the android.

“My apologies, Hank,” he said and took a step away.

“It's alright kid. Come sit down with me, even if you don't need to eat anything.”

The android took the same chair he'd sat in earlier, when he'd been talking with Markus, and Hank sat where the other android had.

“How have the latest riots developed?” he asked as the detective took a bite of cold pizza.

“Eh. A bunch of people arrested, charged with property damage and a few with assault. I wish I could find the bastard who did that,” he pointed at the patch in Connor’s head, “and bash his head in.”

“If retribution is the purpose of that, it would be disproportionate. I suffered considerably less damage than he would from a fractured skull.”

“But it still hurt you right?”

“Well, yes.”

“Then he deserves a good beating.” He said it in a tone that indicated that the discussion was over. 

“Were any officers from the station injured?”

“Aside from you, ya mean? Someone punched Chris in the face, but he's alright aside from the shiner. Oh, and Gavin got a mild concussion from a bottle someone threw at him, but no one really cares.”

Connor couldn't think of anything else to ask, so he just sat there silently until Hank had finished his meal, and then tried to get up.

He moved too fast, sparking a discrepancy between the world perceived with his visual receptors and the balance information received from his gyroscope and accelerometer. Pain blossomed through his skull, and this sent him tumbling.

It was all just too much.  His knees collided with the linoleum, and then his hands. It seemed to be that he'd driven Markus away, and didn't know if the Jericho leader would reach back out to him. He was supposed to fly to Washington tomorrow, if the plans hadn't been changed again, to help with negotiations without an exact objective. He was programmed to complete a mission, not to negotiate with the goal of “just get whatever you can” from the other side. He was in pain, and confused, and he couldn't even trust his own sense of balance. It was all so unclear now, enough to make him wonder if free will was really such a good thing.

Liquid coolant began to leak from the sockets of his visual receptors as he put his head down into his hands. He hated the way the patch in his head felt against his palm. If his LED hadn't been destroyed it would have been flashing red as his stress level rose, not in response to immediate outside stimuli. Hank was probably confused by these actions, but he could not reconstruct what exactly had led him here to be able to offer up a sufficient explanation. Trauma was not something he was programmed to deal with, as androids weren't supposed to suffer from it. 

They also didn't need to breathe, strictly speaking, but it had been programmed into most models to make them seem more lifelike.  Connor found this usually involuntary action more difficult and irregular as he began to do what he recognized as the exclusively human action of crying.

He felt a hand on his back, and could not get the words through his vocal module to tell his friend that his actions were unnecessary because he was okay. He let the appendage stay there, as that had lower odds of negatively impacting his relationship with Hank than pushing it away did.  He did not object as the older man pulled him off the ground and into his arms. It felt… good, actually, as warm circles were rubbed into his back and a hand carded gently through his remaining hair. He leaned into the contact, pressing his face into the shoulder offered to him.

The bat appeared to have also damaged his ability to keep track of time, as he didn't know how long he'd been there crying by the time he finally got ahold of his errant code. He pushed  himself back from the other man and dried his eyes.

“Thank you,” Connor said.

“No problem, son,” Hank replied. “Just, uh, warn me next time before you have an emotional breakdown, alright?”

“I fear I may be unable to predict it, but I will attempt to give you advanced notice,” the deviant agreed. 

“Alright. You sleeping on the couch again tonight?” Hank asked. The lieutenant still did not seem to understand that Connor did not need to sleep like a human would. Though, at this time, inactivity would allow his body to replenish its thirium and begin to repair itself faster. And he couldn't imagine trying to do anything very strenuous with his pain receptors still firing off like they were. So he just nodded instead of explaining android biology.

He lay down on the dilapidated sofa, on the fabric stretched over a sagging frame. The ceiling, strangely pristine, was so devoid of detail that it lulled the android to low power mode.

\-------------------------------------------------

The next day Connor was on a plane, a private jet, with Markus, North, and Josh. Four androids that by a mixture of chance and choice had ended up in the center of everything. The jet hadn't taken off yet, and given how much Connor’s gyro had been acting up when they were stationary, he was not looking forward to being in the air. His stress level was at 68% and climbing. This hadn't gone unnoticed by Josh, who was sitting next to him.

“You a nervous flier?” the android asked him gently. 

“Not nervous, exactly. Apprehensive about how turbulence will affect my gyroscope.”

“I'm sure it will be fine,” Josh assured him. It didn't help. Connor made an unsure noise, and closed his eyes when the jet rumbled to move on its feet. They weren't even off the ground when he closed his eyes and gripped the armrests tight. He felt a cool plastic touch on the back of his hand, and some instinct made him pull the skin back. Calm stability washed over him through the interface with Josh, and the plane took off and reached cruising altitude while his stress level actually deceased. He was eventually confident enough to let go, and disconnect.

“Thank you. You seem to be quite adept at controlling interfaces to help androids.”

Josh shrugged. “It was something I could do at Jericho to help distract people from their suffering before Markus showed up and we got supplies to help them. It's also the only form of pain relief yet to be developed for androids, so it's been useful when I'm helping at treatment centers.”

“I might need your help when the plane begins to descend as well,” Connor admitted as he stood up and straightened his tie out of habit. Josh just nodded calmly.

The negotiator didn't want to interrupt Markus and North, but the Jericho leader stood up anyway when he saw the RK800 model approach.

“Let's go talk,” he said as he led Connor towards the nose of the plane. They didn't strictly need to be physically removed from the others for privacy, as they could talk inside their heads without anyone being able to overhear, but Markus had some very human and often illogical mannerisms. At one point the plane bounced, and he grabbed the arm of the android with the damaged gyroscope to steady him.

“Are you okay?” He asked first thing.

“Yes. Josh helped me with the vertigo during the plane's assent.”

“That isn't exactly what I meant,” Markus said, but let it go. 

“I'd like to apologize for my behaviour yesterday,” Connor changed the subject. “I was out of line, and I regret many of the things I said.”

“There is nothing to be sorry for,” Markus replied. “You've been through a lot, Connor, and you need time to process it, as well as to learn how. I need to go over some strategy with North before we land, so now isn't the best time, but if you ever need to talk, I'm here for you.”

“Talk?”

“Discussing trauma and problems aloud is a substantial part of therapy for humans,” the other android explained. “It's cathartic and helps them to process difficult experiences. Having someone listen to them and provide comfort is also beneficial.”

“Hank also suggested to me that I should talk,” Connor replied. He knew it hadn't been meant as an order, but the human knew better than him about emotions anyway, so it was probably good advice. The detective had written the instruction down on a sticky note and attached it to his partner's forehead while he was in low power mode before the man had needed to leave for work.

“You should listen,” Markus said. “I'm pretty sure decent counsel out of him is rare.”

“He's always helped me,” Connor protested.  Excluding that little time when he'd held a gun to his head.

“Well, that's because he loves you,” Markus said matter-of-factly. The younger android didn't know quite how to react to that.

“I'll let you get back to North,” he said after a minute. Markus clapped a hand on his shoulder as he walked past, and after a minute Connor followed him back down the plane to return to his own seat. Even though his gyroscope was cooperating more after Josh's interface, it still felt like his head was reeling.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not great at endings, so I wrote a crack follow up involving North and Connor acting like children in Very Important Situations.
> 
> I thought Josh needed something more to him than just Markus's pacifist advisor, and I thought interfacing is an interesting feature to develop. 
> 
> I really love getting comments and hearing what people think about my stuff.


End file.
